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The indignados make change contagious One year on, the Spanish indignados are offering practical ways to survive the economic crisis Die Nachrichten (1/2) The recurring image of the indignados, the Spanish movement that pro tested against the "economic dictatorship of the markets", is a kind of democratic Mexican wave of upraised, waving hands. Rippling in a crowd of thousands, the emotion that moves with it can be charged and palpable.indignados This contagious symbol of agreement was used to build consensus in public assemblies as the movement erupted last year to occupy public spaces across Europe. It seems to say that democracy is a living being; something you do, not something you have, and that people are here to reclaim it. This Saturday, 12 May, the waving hands of the indignados will return to the plazas of Spain, and the Mexican wave will ripple outwards as part of a day of action for the 99% in hundreds of cities worldwide, from Athens to Santiago.the waving hands of the indignados The indignados grasped early on that the economic crisis was also a political crisis, and their struggle is for a fundamental renewal of democratic politics. While the markets can destroy livelihoods in milliseconds, the slow, halting meetings in the plazas, and the smaller local assemblies that spread from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, embody participatory democracy. Tuesday 8 May 2012

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And in the wider context of loss of political legitimacy in Europe, where decisions are made at technocratic meetings of finance officials, and austerity is being locked into the EU constitution with the new fiscal compact – not to mention the rising appeal of the far right from France to Hungary to the Netherlands – their commitment to genuine democracy is more important than ever. One year on, the mood is more sombre and mature, with a real sense of the difficulty of the endeavour and the stakes involved. A three-day encampment is planned for this weekend in Plaza del Sol in Madrid and other Spanish squares across the country to make visible their numbers and their demands. These include "not one more euro to rescue the banks", "quality education and health" and "dignified and guaranteed housing". This is in a context of palpable rising frustration among the general population, as a bailout for Spain looks ever more likely. Youth unemployment is over 50%, university fees doubled, and Bankia, a bank with assets that come to almost a third of the Spanish economy, is about to receive between 5bn and 10bn of public money. Many people who would not normally participate in social action are reaching the limits of their tolerance, and the protests will be huge.Youth unemployment is over 50%Bankia, a bank with assets that come to almost a third of the Spanish economy, is about to receive between 5bn Meanwhile repression by the state is becoming increasingly fierce. Police use of rubber bullets during the recent general strike in Barcelona led to two people losing an eye and left another with a ruptured spleen. A proposed law would make it "an offence to breach authority using mass active or passive resistance against security forces and to include as a crime of assault any threatening or intimidating behaviour", and simply blockading traffic or using social media to organise protest could land you in jail for two years.rubber bullets during the recent general strike

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Recent attempts to criminalise the movement [mehr dazu am 15. Juni!] have been met with the trending hashtag on Twitter, #HolaDictadura (Hello Dictatorship). The country retains the memory of the Franco years, and the understanding that democracy is something you have to defend, that it is something it is possible to lose. As rights that took decades of struggle to win back are being wiped away in moments, a group of activist grandparents who will be taking part in the 12 May protests invoke their long memories: "We refuse to lose the rights we once fought so hard for." The indignados are likewise beginning attempts to construct concrete alternatives to the present system. They have published a Manual of Economic Disobedience, and are working on solutions that return economic control into local hands. More than 200 time banks now exist across the country, with an estimated five new ones springing up a month. Local currencies, barter markets and networks of co-operatives are slowly developing.Manual of Economic Disobediencetime banks Filling the gaps in the current system with these nascent alternatives not only offers practical ways for people to survive the crisis; they embody the fundamental idea of the indignados that democracy is something you do, not something you have. On the 12 May, they hope once more to make this idea globally contagious. The indignados are not just defending health, education and social security, or resisting bank bailouts. They are demanding a popular audit of the national debt – in fact many of Spain's problems stem from toxic private debt, not public debt – and their demand for a universal basic rent offers a real critique of current policy.

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I – Einführung (wichtige Texte) Keith, Hart, Anthropology Today Vol. 25 No. 6, Dec. 2009, p. 24-25 We are living through the first stages of a world revolution as profound, in my view, as the invention of agriculture. It is a machine revolution, of course: the convergence of telephones, television and computers in a digital system whose most visible symbol is the internet. It is a social revolution, the formation of a world society with means of communication adequate at last to expressing universal ideas. It is a financial revolution, the detachment of the virtual money circuit from production, linked to the Wests loss of control over the world economy. It is an existential revolution, transforming what it means to be human and how each of us relates to the rest of humanity. Email was made in heaven for me, an oral/written hybrid, between a letter and a phone call.

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III – Das tunesische Beispiel Famous Anonymous The social networks actively participated in the Jasmine Revolution canalising and catalysing the anger of the people. This movement was made possible by the commitment of those whose digital identity was asserted – to whom the portraits published here pay tribute -, but also by anonymous people, the Anonymous, who enabled the networks to function. This community, founded in 2003, ardently defends freedom of expression by pushing egos aside and by proclaiming a collective awareness of the Internet. After targeted attacks on the sites of scientology or multinationals, the Anonymous actively participated in the WikiLeaks adventure. In 2010, they contributed to the fight against the censorship of the Internet in several countries, particularly in Tunisia. In a way, Tunisia is only one piece of the puzzle that is in the process of being completed, concludes Johann Rousselot. The joining together of secret contacts makes up a force that the Ben Ali regime greatly misjudged; a force that worries many governments, a force where the power of the collective fully expresses itself. (siehe diese Seite)diese Seite

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December 2010. Protests take hold on a long-term basis in Tunisia and the dictatorial regime of President Ben Ali, in place for twenty-three years, is shaking under the pressure from the streets. The revolution is covered by the news photographers and the agencies at the scene. The photos of the demonstrations are on the front pages of the daily papers and magazines. Johann Rousselot, like many of his colleagues, has a feeling that something is going on. I shuddered while reading the paper, he tells us. Still in Paris on 14th January 2011, the day Ben Ali departed, Johann is gathering information and discovers on the ReadWriteWeb blog the decisive role of the Web and the social networks in the Tunisian revolt. He realises then that something important is happening and decides to leave and meet those involved in this new kind of movement. I wanted to try and understand how we can make a revolution on the Web, he explains.

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VI – Die Gefahr des Slacktivismus Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a term formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them, although this assumption has not been borne out by research.

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Slacktivist activities include signing Internet petitions, joining a community organization without contributing to the organization's efforts, copying and pasting of Social Network statuses or messages or altering one's personal data or avatar on social network services. Research is beginning to explore the connection between the concept and modern activism/advocacy, as groups are increasingly using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. As the historian Robert Darnton has written, The marvels of communication technology in the present have produced a false consciousness about the pasteven a sense that communication has no history, or had nothing of importance to consider before the days of television and the Internet. But there is something else at work here, in the outsized enthusiasm for social media. Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is. Andere Protestformen… nächste Woche! Die Hoax-Verbreitung…